Politics (split from Rogers thread)

[md]

Aziz @ 2007-08-10, 7:45 am wrote:

And I think you should wholly ditch any ISP that tries to control what you do. Their job is to provide you the connection service and that's it (Internet Service Provider).

Unfortunately that's not so easy. There are actually remarkably few ISPs.

[rant]
Were I ever elected (I can dream!) my first act would be to introduce some legislation to try and fix it. Step 1: group all communications carriers together. Cable company, phone company; both are in the business of providing a data connection (in the end... phones can be seen as very limited data conections). Step #2: Make it illegal for data carriers (from step #1) to block or limit data over their network. Even packet inspection should be banned. Traffic shaping so as to say prioritize VOIP over Bittorrent should definitely be allowed; however traffic cannot be blocked or slowed. Step #3: make corporate leaders personally responsible if step #2 is ignored. Punishable with jail time and huge fines.

Incidentally... making people responsable again would do wonders to our society. I mean, politicians promise to do X and Y when elected; and then don't. Technically they are making a contract (vote me in and I will do X and Y), the populace upheld their side of the contract (by electing the person) so the politician should have to do as they said they would. The punishment for not doing so should be immediate loss of your Seat, banishment from public office forever, large fines, and potentially jail time (depending on what it is you said you'd do and didn't; startign a war when you said you wouldn't for instance). Politicians would then have to be very careful about what they say, and would be held accountable for what they do. As is no one from any of the major parties really needs to be honest as no one excpects them to do as they say anyways.

Oh, businesses should also be prevented from making political contributions of any kind. They are already represented by their owners/employees.

[/rant]

[Cervantes]

md @ Fri Aug 10, 2007 6:37 pm wrote:

The punishment for not doing so should be immediate loss of your Seat, banishment from public office forever, large fines, and potentially jail time (depending on what it is you said you'd do and didn't; startign a war when you said you wouldn't for instance).

When, exactly, is this to immediately occur?

[Skynet]

md @ Fri Aug 10, 2007 6:37 pm wrote:

Traffic shaping so as to say prioritize VOIP over Bittorrent should definitely be allowed; however traffic cannot be blocked or slowed.

Isn't this self-contradictory? If you prioritize one use over another, isn't it likely that you'll be increasing latency for the lower-priority use?

[md]

Cervantes @ 2007-08-10, 8:54 pm wrote:

md @ Fri Aug 10, 2007 6:37 pm wrote:

The punishment for not doing so should be immediate loss of your Seat, banishment from public office forever, large fines, and potentially jail time (depending on what it is you said you'd do and didn't; startign a war when you said you wouldn't for instance).

When, exactly, is this to immediately occur?

At the moment a judge rules on if you have broken the contract you made when elected. Just because I advocate harsh punishments does not mean they shouldn't be made from the court. If you think a politician has broke his campaign promises you should sue him like you would in any other contract dispute. However since the nature of the contract is different then most other contracts the punishments are likewise different. The reward to anyone who brings such a suit should be small; perhaps limited to court fees.

skynet wrote:

Isn't this self-contradictory? If you prioritize one use over another, isn't it likely that you'll be increasing latency for the lower-priority use?

Not at all, increased latency != blocked entirely. In real world traffic scenarios there isn't likely to be very much of an increase in latency at all. I suppose by slowed I mean actively drop packets of a particular type irregardless of network congestion.

[Cervantes]

md @ Fri Aug 10, 2007 11:51 pm wrote:

Cervantes @ 2007-08-10, 8:54 pm wrote:

When, exactly, is this to immediately occur?

At the moment a judge rules on if you have broken the contract you made when elected. Just because I advocate harsh punishments does not mean they shouldn't be made from the court. If you think a politician has broke his campaign promises you should sue him like you would in any other contract dispute. However since the nature of the contract is different then most other contracts the punishments are likewise different. The reward to anyone who brings such a suit should be small; perhaps limited to court fees.

You answered how. I asked when. Maybe you're answer to when was whenever the public sues him. But that's not feasible at all, because people who voted for that politician's opponents would be ready to sue them right away. Sure they wouldn't win, but then the politician would be spending all his/her time in court.

If a politician says, "I promise to introduce a fix and properly maintain the streets of this city", but doesn't do anything about it for 3 months, has he broken his contract? What if it's eight months, or a year? It's all the same.

[Geminias]

I completely agree with md, I think a politician's promise should be considered a contract - but much more than a mere verbal contract between two roomies over a fish bowl. These people get elected by the people over these promises and NEVER follow through on ALL of them.

I think the core of the problem is: how do you punish the punisher? Anyone who dares to oppose a current regime risks everything. These days instead of a lynching the punishments are subtle; like the disappearance of contributions, demotion, humiliation, slander. . . How can one rule against their boss? The supreme court is appointed by the P.M. is it not?

[md]

Cervantes @ 2007-08-11, 10:39 am wrote:

You answered how. I asked when. Maybe you're answer to when was whenever the public sues him. But that's not feasible at all, because people who voted for that politician's opponents would be ready to sue them right away. Sure they wouldn't win, but then the politician would be spending all his/her time in court.

If a politician says, "I promise to introduce a fix and properly maintain the streets of this city", but doesn't do anything about it for 3 months, has he broken his contract? What if it's eight months, or a year? It's all the same.

That's a good point. When there is no time limit on a promise then you really wouldn't be able to bring a case until the end of the politician's term. If you define someone's term in office to the be time between elections then you would only have to wait until the next election before a suit could be brought. A politician accused of breaking a promise should be prevented from running again until his name is clear, however in the case of upcoming elections a trial could easily and quickly be held: The promises are clear and the politician's actions are clear, a judgment should be fairly easy to come to. Appeals would be handled as they are in any other trail, though it might be necessary to allow a politician who won the first trail to run for re-election even if it is appealed. If the ruling is later overturned the election could then be ruled null and void.

The thing is that anyone who makes a promise to "Fix the roads" isn't someone you want to elect. You want someone with a definite plan, i.e. "I will fix the roads as per Plan A, in time limit B; staggered as per Schedule C". Other key promises are promising to vote for or against something, or to bring or not to bring a certain piece of legislation.

For instance, Harper said before he was elected that he would not change the tax rules relating to income trusts. Companies took him on his word and some turned themselves into income trusts, this cost lots of money but is offset by the lower taxes income trusts would have paid under the old rules. Harper then did the complete opposite and changed the tax rules, causing all those companies that turned themselves into income trusts to lose significant amounts of money. And what happened to Harper? Nothing. Theoretically he might lose the next election, but almost certainly he won't lose his seat; and he'll probably remain head of his party. Yes, those politicians are really accountable now.

Certainly my proposal would be met with sharp criticism from most if not all currently elected politicians, and future ones would try (and probably find) ways around it if it were enacted. But I think you'd be hard pressed to say that it wouldn't improve the current political climate.

Mazer: encrypted packets only encrypt the payload. Things like destination port and IP are still visible. If you receive many packets on a single port, some of which are unencrypted BT packets, it's not that much of a leap to assume that all packets to that port are BT packets. Then there is also the possibility of breaking encryption schemes, either breaking the encryption directly or how it's applied. Sometimes the entire packet isn't encrypted either, providing another avenue of attack.

[rizzix]

I propose that we cut the pay of all politicians!

[Cervantes]

md @ Sun Aug 12, 2007 7:39 pm wrote:

Certainly my proposal would be met with sharp criticism from most if not all currently elected politicians, and future ones would try (and probably find) ways around it if it were enacted. But I think you'd be hard pressed to say that it wouldn't improve the current political climate.

Not at all. It's actually very easy. Sure, it's distasteful when a politician breaks a promise, but don't you think politicians should have some room to maneuver? You can make a campaign promise at the time of the election, and then two years later the situation could have vastly changed and you now think it best to break that promise. Politicians don't do things to anger the public, you know.

[Nick]

its like conscription during WW1, WW2, it was promised not to be involved but eventually became nesacarry to keep the war going... luckily both times the allies won beofre much conscripts fought

[md]

Cervantes @ 2007-08-12, 9:20 pm wrote:

md @ Sun Aug 12, 2007 7:39 pm wrote:

Certainly my proposal would be met with sharp criticism from most if not all currently elected politicians, and future ones would try (and probably find) ways around it if it were enacted. But I think you'd be hard pressed to say that it wouldn't improve the current political climate.

Not at all. It's actually very easy. Sure, it's distasteful when a politician breaks a promise, but don't you think politicians should have some room to maneuver? You can make a campaign promise at the time of the election, and then two years later the situation could have vastly changed and you now think it best to break that promise. Politicians don't do things to anger the public, you know.

I don't elect people to think. I elect them to do as I want, and I do so by electing people based on what they promise to do. Of course if I elect someone and they do think, and consult their constituents, and then they break an election promise because there is a clear need to then a judge could take that into account. Really the only time that it's even close to reasonable to break a promise is in the event that the country will be destroyed if you don't. Conscription might have been the right thing, but the country certainly wouldn't have fallen apart without it.

[Cervantes]

md, you have some damn weird political ideas.

You, uh, have to elect people to think. They don't make nearly enough election promises to cover everything that they need to deal with for their term in office. How do you think international trade would work if politicians didn't think? Say the leader of some nation asks our prime minister for some financial aid to build schools in his third world country. Our PM turns around and, not being allowed to think, responds that he didn't make a promise on this issue to the public during his campaign and hence cannot act on it. Yeah, great.

You elect officials who you believe have similar morals and values as you do. You don't elect them to do exactly what you want them to do. Even if you think that's how you want the system to work, look at all the people who don't pay enough attention to politics--they would have even less idea who to vote for. They would probably vote for the person who's promises give real benefits in the short term, but unknown to the voter, will undoubtedly lead to economic and social decay in the long term.

[Dan]

Conscription in canada was deftaly not nessary during ww1 and ww2 in my option. In the end very few poeleop (realtively) who got conscripted even made it to a fighting postion. What it did do was start masive protests and realy realy piss off qubec.

I don't think conscription should ever be an option, if your war is realy justic the peoleop will wiling fight it.

[Cervantes]

rdrake @ Tue Aug 14, 2007 10:14 pm wrote:

Elected officials are respected con men.

I'd like to disagree, but you didn't provide any supporting points for me to disagree with.

[rdrake]

Cervantes @ Tue Aug 14, 2007 10:38 pm wrote:

rdrake @ Tue Aug 14, 2007 10:14 pm wrote:

Elected officials are respected con men.

I'd like to disagree, but you didn't provide any supporting points for me to disagree with.

You don't agree with the respected part?